Bill Clinton: “Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming here today to meet with us. I wanted to have an…”

“Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank all of you for coming here today to meet with us. I wanted to have an opportunity while I was in Korea to hear directly from some people who are living through these changes and who have different views and different experiences that I would hope you would share with me, because I want very much to understand how what is happening in Korea today and where you are going actually affects the lives of the people here in this country. And so that is why I wanted to do this. I thank you for being brave enough to come here and do this. Thank you for helping us. And I want to thank Senator Baucus and Assistant Secretary Koh for joining me; he's coming home--[laughter]--and Senator Baucus and I feel at home here. And I want to thank my Ambassador. So maybe you guys could come around, and we could begin the meeting. I think we're through with the photos. Ambassador Steven W. Bosworth. Mr. President, you spoke earlier of your admiration for the resolute spirit with which Korean people are responding to what President Kim Dae-jung has described as the most serious crisis in Korea since the Korean war. And I think we're fortunate to have a group of people around this table this afternoon who can give you some insight into how Korea is handling this crisis, what does the future look like here, and how individual Koreans and individual Korean companies are responding to what is happening here. And I don't have any particular order. If you care to say anything to begin, other than what you've already said, or if perhaps some of our guests would care to speak, then we can have what I hope will be a conversation.”